--- title: "Tech Layoffs So Far This Year Have Officially Blown Past the Total for 2025" description: "The number of tech layoffs has officially surpassed the total for 2025, and it continues to rise with each passing day." date: "2026-08-14" modified: "2026-08-14" authors: - name: "Joe Wilkins" job_title: "Correspondent" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jwilkins" url: "https://futurism.com/future-society/2026-tech-layoffs-surpass-2025" categories: - "Finance" - "Future Society" --- # Tech Layoffs So Far This Year Have Officially Blown Past the Total for 2025 ![A person wearing a dark suit is holding an open cardboard box filled with office items, including a clock, pens in a holder, and a binder. The background is blurred, suggesting an outdoor urban setting.]() *Shutterstock / Futurism* Last year was a bloodbath for tech workers around the world. Across all of 2025, this strata of highly trained professionals lost some 122,606 jobs across 278 global tech companies, driven by extremely wealthy corporations like [Amazon]() and [Meta]() that were cleaning house as they made major AI investments. Yet for as bad as last year was for labor, 2026 is sure to be far worse, as the number of tech-industry layoffs by mid-August has already surpassed 2025's total. That's [according to *Fast Company*](), which recently observed that tech layoffs in 2026 had reached 125,759 by August 6. That number will continue to climb precipitously as companies like [Etsy]() and [Zillow]() shed workers like last week's Primark fit. Case in point, the total number of layoffs just a week after the *FC* report now stands at 126,305, per the layoff tracker [Layoffs.fyi](), fueled by downsizing at software giants like Salesforce and LinkedIn, as well as the cybersecurity company Rapid7. The advent of commercially-available large language models has been a kind of kryptonite for the [once dynamic]() tech labor sector. Now that their bosses have easy access to generative AI models that can spit out halfway passible code, developers and software engineers have been forced onto the back foot, with many choosing to [leave the industry]() altogether. Ironically, those AI tools are now helping execs decimate the very roles that made the AI boom possible in the first place — a kind of [mass-deskilling]() that shows no sign of stopping anytime soon. **More on tech labor:** *[AI Is Pushing Older Employees Straight Out of the Workforce, New Report Finds]()* ## Author At Futurism, I focus on the intersection of technology and power — examining the economics, history, and politics behind today’s dystopian headlines. As a writer, I’m interested in topics ranging from AI’s impact on labor to startups nobody asked for. My prior work includes bylines in Jacobin, Verso, and Blue Labyrinths. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Forbes, The Guardian, MIT Technology Review, Time, The Nation, Mother Jones, The Verge, and Wired. I grew up in Michigan, attending Central Michigan University as well as Ball State University, where I earned a master of music. I now live in Brooklyn with my girlfriend and our cat Ziti. On weekends, you can find me hunched over a cold pint arguing geopolitics with the other transplants. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()